Today, we set off for a trip to Hangzhou, which was named the Hiking-Interdisciplinary Inquiry Activity.

Before the trip started, we were told we had to live in a 10-person dorm there. We were totally delighted and looking forward to this excellent trip. On the first day, we arrived around noon to eat lunch. We pulled up at a restaurant that looked fine on the outside. On the tables were Coke and Sprite©, and we actually got higher expectations, but soon the school proved us wrong. Unclean spots were in the bowls, the school ordered way too much food we could ever eat, and it looked like it deserved to be in the sewer. The lunch was delightful (if you hoped to eat in a trash pile).

After that was some walking at a “wetland,” with plants and small bodies of water, before we started, the guides there told us to warm up, which was useful if you casually got fractures and sprained ankles while walking. The walking was boring, and after the walk, we went to eat dinner. For dinner, we ended up at the same place we ate lunch at. Unsurprisingly, the food was just as good as our lunch. After we finished, we set off for our dorms.

Once we were on the bus for a couple of minutes, we found that the bus was taking us away from urbanization. There were no signs of any buildings nearby, and the streetlights were the only thing we saw. After we arrived, we saw a building that looked abandoned. For a second, I even thought we were in northern Myanmar. In the building, the boys lived on the third floor, while the girls lived on the second floor. The school planned to stuff a classroom’s worth of boys into one dorm, while the teachers lived in twin rooms, which worked somehow. The dorm had six bunk beds, three on the left and three on the right. On the ceiling were pipes exposed and the floor seemed to be made of a cement-like substance. Behind the three rows of beds were curtains, two sinks, and a window. The beds had very thin mattresses, thick blankets (it was pretty hot), and bedsheets that fell off even if you tugged them very slightly. Near the door was a row of sockets with eerie red lights unable to turn off, and out of the room was the toilet and shower. The shower was fine, like the ones you get at swimming pools, but the toilet was the kind you needed to squat down, which was impossible for anyone to use, especially those ages 30 and below. 

After we settled, we were gathered to meet to play board games. I had little interest in it, so I started to write daily journals. Then we went back to our dorms to sleep.

Ah, sleep! one of the most valuable things you can get while traveling. Whenever I tried to sleep, there was always the sound of chips, games, and chatting. As a person who needed a quiet environment to sleep, I gave up quite fast on sleeping before twelve. Eventually, the sounds died down perhaps because they realized that if they didn’t sleep, they’d die from a heart attack. At last, I slept at 1:30 am (estimation) and woke up at 6:30, creating a record of sleeping 5 hours (maybe less).

In the morning, I found three mosquito bites on my arms and legs. I got them because I abandoned my blanket since I thought it was too hot. Then we headed off for breakfast, which was plain: boiled eggs, buns, corn, and sweet potatoes (unpeeled). Unfortunately, there was also this soup-like substance named “soymilk”, that looked white, translucent, and tasted like is water. Overall, it was nice if you hadn’t had breakfast in years.

Then it was time for tea picking! It was hot that day and because 8.4 stood at the end of the row, we didn’t hear much of what the instructor said about picking tea, so we picked whatever we found. We all got a hat and a small basket to put our leaves on, and afterward, we did get quite a lot. What baffled me was that they gathered the tea we picked, and we never saw them again. When we exited, they gave us small cans of tea to make us feel better and to upgrade us from free labor to cheap labor. It was amazing if you dreamt of being a slave.

After entering and exiting the bus again, we arrived at a place to study the art of “Diancha”, which was, in short, latte art on whipped, semi-foamy Matcha water and tasted bitter as hell. After that was lunchtime, which was in a different place (hooray!), and the dishes improved slightly (yay!). Once we discovered disposable cups that we lacked and took them with us, we got on the bus and headed to more hiking.

On day two, we experienced true hiking, because we had to climb hills to reach our destination. What I hated the most was that the people in front of us walked intermittently, which caused a waste of my energy and I got tired somehow (even after I’d been to several mountains), so I decided to move in front of the whole line, which I did and instantly felt better. Another annoying thing was mosquitoes, which appeared in the shady parts of the hills. Unlike others who used repellent spray, I put on my jacket and physically repelled it, which worked surprisingly well. In conclusion, the walk ended with a few people spraining their ankles and me getting no mosquito bites.

Then was dinner at the restaurant we first ate, it was bad as usual. After dinner was the casual “settle down, activities, sleep” routine. As for the activity, we got to carve stamps (real stones!), which resulted in people injuring their hands. My stamp was a blur because I didn’t carve deep enough (not that I care, anyway). Something important was that cup noodles were banned as a result of somebody slipping on spilled cup noodles (we’ll find a way to finish them, though),

Another sleepless night started with me playing on my phone in bed until around eleven. Then I attempted to sleep, which failed miserably. There was an improvement, though, I think I slept for 5 hours straight.

Day three began with breakfast, and as a lesson from yesterday, I decided not to get the “soymilk”. The content of the breakfast was similar to yesterday’s, but what was different was that we found a massive amount of public school primary students eating with us. We barely cared. Notice that the boiled eggs were replaced by tea eggs, and I didn’t eat them.

After breakfast, we gathered to learn how to use a compass, which is useless for hiking. Then we all got on the bus and started a 5-hour walk. In short, the routine was: walk, eat, walk. About halfway, we rested and ate the road meals they gave us (some snacks). During rest, Matthew bought me a popsicle, and I want to thank him for that. The walk was hot, so I put on my jacket because I was too lazy to apply sunscreen. It worked amazingly well for defending both sunlight and mosquitoes.

Dinner started at four. I had no idea why, but the dinner times were getting earlier. I wasn’t hungry and so drank the tea they gave us on day two. Luckily, in the new restaurant, we found actual toilets, and I instantly felt better after using them. After going to the bathroom, I found a playground outside, where most people went as they were also not hungry like me. There were trampolines and swings and we acted like three-year-olds.

Upon returning to the dorms, the activity was a talent show, where both students and teachers went to sing and dance. I didn’t care much, so I started writing the journals.

When we returned to our rooms, we realized that tonight was the last chance to finish our cup noodles. Kim had a thermal bottle so he did the job of getting hot water. It was risky, and we ended up having everyone who had cup noodles eating their noodles, curtains closed, on the window sill. We opened the windows to spread away the smell and we poured the soup into the sink. As for the cup, some threw it down the window, which I thought was uncivilized, so I and most others threw it in the trash can and covered it with trash to pretend we had eaten it two days ago (my idea). As there are no Level 3s on me, you’d probably guess that it worked. It did, and that day I slept for at least 5 and a half hours (estimation).

On Friday we had the same terrible breakfast we had for the past two days. I felt lucky for not eating those eggs because a classmate told me there was this “A-Yi” standing at the food disposal place recycling eggs. He said the “A-Yi” said that uneaten eggs could be used to make breakfast tomorrow, and he suspects that the eggs yesterday could be the uneaten eggs from the day before yesterday. I didn’t care much as I didn’t eat the eggs yesterday.

After lunch there was more walking which we got used to, but this time we walked along a river, the Qiantang River. The scenery was fine, I’ve seen better scenery. It was just a plain, canal-ish river like any canal-ish river you can find. Upon our destination was a technology museum where nothing was interesting, so I found a chair and rested there. About an hour later, we got on the bus and went to eat lunch.

Guess where we ate our lunch? That’s correct, the restaurant we first came to. The school had canceled Coke and Sprite© because they said that parents complained. Well, at least they gave us chicken nuggets as a dish.

That’s it. We packed up, sat on the bus, and after a few hours, we appeared at school again. The trip was over.

In conclusion, I know that no one will finish this near-1800-word blog entry about roasting the school, and I would like to say that unless you want to spend ￥2300 to torture yourself, never go to this kind of activity. Of course, there are more details and small events I haven’t written yet because I forgot them, I’m too lazy to write them, and time issues. Lastly, I’d like to say that I’m a bit jealous of Toby for not enduring the pain we’ve been through.

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